


Fall, the Season of Love

by IngeniumNoctuam



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Autumn, Get Together, M/M, MWPP, Marauders era, Romance, fall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5629117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IngeniumNoctuam/pseuds/IngeniumNoctuam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fall is a surprising season and also, apparently, the season of love. Remus finds himself caught up in this seasonal parasite, despite his best efforts. An argument and a jumble of, mostly drunken, memories ensue.</p><p>Or, an ode to fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall, the Season of Love

Summer love is overrated. Fall, though possibly the most underrated season, with the absence of snow or even the tiniest hint of warmth, a sad middle between hot chocolate and skinny dipping, is the time of blossoming love. Ironically, it is also when everything else dies. Perhaps it is for this reason Remus is staring out the window, watching couples holding hands under the gloomy skies, couples laughing in tremendous piles of auburns and oranges, couples kissing in the drizzle of dead leaves. Perhaps this is why he places his forehead on the cool glass of the window, damp from condensation, and tracks each pair with his amber eyes, ignoring the extremely obvious approaching footsteps.

"Budge over."

A foot nudges him in the side. With a brief scoot, a tucking of robes around slender shoulders, and a folding of knees to chest, room is made for the familiar visitor. A single raindrop leads the charge down the window. A low rumble off in the distance, like the starting beat of a drum, carries over and sends the rest of the raindrops scurrying. Horrifyingly, the couples don't seem to notice the raindrops skimming down their pink tinged faces.

"You didn't even bring me hot chocolate, how disappointing," Remus drawls. He doesn't bother looking at the person squishing his side against the window, no doubt lazily laying with effortless perfection.

"How do you know?" An arm wraps itself around his shoulders in what is meant to be a mock show of affection, though the endurance of this simple little task proceeds friendly, ticking slowly into the region of 'I like touching you' and to the border of romantic. Not that Remus has a mental clock set for these things in his head, because that would be weird and that would mean he's paying attention to these gestures. Admittedly, the frequency as well as the length of these touches has been going up. It is plausible he's a creature of science, tracking change, finding patterns. It is, actually, entirely too impossible.

Remus recalls yesterday Sirius fell asleep on his chest while they (Remus) were reading in the common room, just over there on the love seat by the fire, with the soft cushions that tried to slowly eat you alive with the gentlest of touches. He recalls how Sirius had just wrapped himself around his torso, burrowing his face in the fabric of the woolen jumper and sighing in that sleepy and totally vulnerable way, until the moon had risen to an uncomfortable hang in the sky. He recalls the smell of cigarettes and mint, like the smell of lighting before it crackles. He recalls the warmth, especially in those hands, that did just as well if not better than the fire. He recalls but he doesn't have to because the same body is right now holding him close to his side, away from the dreary, albeit picturesque, window.

Remus thinks back to breakfast, to when the noises of the hundreds of students became muffled, submerged in water, and all there was in all the Scottish grasslands and all the trembling seas in all the milky skies was a silky voice in his ear narrating a scene Remus was sure he couldn't see clearly even if he tried, even though the voice was saying it was happening mere feet away, because besides the voice was a hand over his, jerking his attention from him with every frantic shake and warm squeeze. Though, despite this constant strife for attention, those lips the voice was pouring out of were rather distracting, rather soft looking, rather obtainable, even now on the window seat.

Eros eyesore, Remus reminds himself. Love is annoying.

"I don't need to look at you to know you didn't bring me hot chocolate. You never do."

Sirius scoffs and flips his hair, brushing Remus with the tip of his improbably silky shoulder length locks in the process. "One day I'll surprise you."

Remus quirks his lips in a snarky, border line demeaning, smile, that quickly fades as he catches a now blurry image from the window of a couple dashing through the fields outside hand in hand, "I doubt it." The rain cascades down the window pane now, smearing every color outside without exception, no matter how drab the grey or vivacious the red. Remus is almost glad for the reprieve.

"I'm full of surprises," Sirius defends, kicking his shin, a very unsurprising movement, so unsurprising Remus anticipates it and kicks back before the other can do any more damage.

"No, you're not. I can assure you, you're very predictable." The arm is not gone. The arm is around his shoulders, stroking his bicep through the school robes, sending faint pinpricks along his skin; white static. The side pressing against his, though nice, is also very distracting because Remus can feel those sinfully toned muscles ripple, even through the clothes.

"What about Friday? That was unpredictable."

Remus thrums his chin, using those calloused and blistered and ink smudged tips of his long fingers. They feel like the surface of the window, too long to get that warm current of blood flowing in them. Sirius, who seems rather antsy for something, who is never good at laying still in silence, because it seems to flip all the little switches hidden behind measly curtains of sanity in his mind, readjusts his position, scraping their thighs together. A moment passes before Remus decides his voice won't crack like a pre pubescent teenager the next time he speaks. "You're predictable in your unpredictability."

Sirius smushes him against the window with a patented cheeky grin stretched across his face, "I am not. You can't tell me you knew I would suggest we would go skinny dipping on Friday."

Fall, though cold and damp and downright broody, is also, apparently in Sirius Black's mind, the opportune time for nude swimming in an already freezing lake that is also inhabited by a giant squid.

"I'm not getting in there!" Remus had yelled, watching his three friends shiver waist deep in the entirely (unsurprisingly) black lake.

"It's not bad once you get in!" James had called with clattering teeth and, if Remus wasn't mistaken in the reddish glow of their illegal bonfire, blue fingertips.

Remus shivered for him, in his woolen socks with the holes in the heels and toes and the trousers he had to roll up a bit because they were too short to begin with.

"I'm cold out here!"

Remus clutched his arms tighter to his sides and rubbed up and down the jumper, hardly for theatrics, as the wind bristled his skin and whipped it raw. The fire mocked him, laughing at him with every crackle and snap, warm and cozy, radiating heat like it radiated color in the darkness mere feet away.

"Drink more! You'll get warmer!" Sirius hollered, letting out a loud belly laugh, nearly slipping in the process.

In truth, despite the warm liquid filling his body so pleasantly, Remus had a predisposition to cold, an immunity to any and all things warm. He shivered in all his clothes on pleasant days, even sometimes in summer. Remus wished Sirius had slipped so he could feel how cold haunts him so, if only for a second.

He felt a shiver crawl up his chest and the alcohols warmth subside even more. "I'm already drunk and it's still not working!" He sat down stubbornly, holding his knees to his chest and pouting, letting the embers from the fire bounce off the ground around him and then fizzle from an alive orange to nothing.

"It would be weird without you!" Peter called, perhaps a little better off with, as he likes to refer to them, his 'heat stores.' Remus looked longingly over to the fire he was sitting unreasonably far from, with empty glass bottles and chocolate wrappers scattered around it in haphazard chaos.

"Yeah! Now we're just three random blokes naked in a lake together!" James added with so many drunken giggles he was hardly understandable.

Remus rested his chin in the dip between his knees, willing his numb fingers to feel something again, willing the color to return to the black world so the moon taunting him from above, nearly full, would fade even for the briefest of seconds. "And how would I make a difference?" That seemed to stump their dreamy little intoxicated brains for a moment.

" 'Cause then we'd be four best friends naked in a lake together!" Sirius hollered eventually, laughing in his all encompassing and booming way again, splashing around so both James and Peter jumped back in shock and repulsion.

A side of his lip quirked up, but Remus just shook his head, his shaggy hair flopping around his face as he did. "Too bad for you. Sounds to me like a personal problem."

The forest behind the lake was very daunting in its endless thickness, depths so black he couldn't see a few feet in. Remus turned his gaze back to the sky, watching the moon stare at him unwavering in condescension. The light contoured Remus' face into something equally resentful, smooth, scratched and haggard with a decade of unshed baggage written in each line and scar.

Sirius was storming out of the lake, apparently, and, very, though Remus tried not to think about or look too hard at this, naked. Despite his best efforts, Remus caught a glimpse, a stomach catching, heart suckling, glimpse at the pale glory dripping and sauntering right at him.

"Get in," Sirius ordered firmly, pointing at the lake with a finger, glaring intently. Remus distracted himself, mostly his eyes, with the fire to his side, longing to lay in the patch of green grass that was surely warmer than the rough weeds he was sitting on. But much like the moon, Sirius was unavoidable in his sheer presence.

"I'm not getting in. Go away." Insecurely, Remus tugged his knees closer to his chest, feeling each and every gruesome, silver scar on his skin like a brand, like he had just gotten them moments ago. The simmering blush didn't help. The unblemished body in front of him didn't help either. Stupid inbreeding.

"It's a wonder we're even friends with you Lupin," Sirius scoffed, naked, unmoving. The glint in his eyes told Remus he knew the stings the words carried, the scabs they picked. Peter and James were too drunk or too oblivious to notice.

Before he could even catch up with his action, process the tears tugging at the rims of his eyes he knew would never spill, process the murky liquid filling his gut, Remus stood from the ground and wrenched his shirt over his head, making unwavering and unrelenting eye contact with Sirius as he did.

"Fine."

Remus dropped his trousers and pants, bending down so low he was eye level with Sirius' crotch. To distract from this rather eye catching view, he looked up into Sirius' eyes through his eyelashes, with the same defiance, a cultivated look of you know you're being terrible and I do too. The eyes he saw were growing blacker and rounder and the cheeks, though helped from the glow of the fire, were flaring a deep red. Remus dragged his eyes back down to the crotch in front of his face but it was covered up and moving away. For the best.

Finally, Remus stood again, the gleam from the fire reflecting the whirling pools of amber his eyes had become; hurt, "Happy? Let's go." He stepped out of his trousers and yanked his socks off before pushing past Sirius, who twitched when their arms bumped, and towards the frigid lake. The sand invaded the crevices between his toes in a way he would usually find nice, but the stubborn and insecure anger made every grain a nuisance. He stomped right into the water, arms over chest though he knew it would hide nothing, thinking up plots of revenge as soon as a single toe breached the surface.

Profanity spilled from his mouth like water from a faucet. "It's freezing!" he yelled. His toes curled inward for warmth as the icy water lapped away at his ankles, biting his skin to the bone. He looked back to see Sirius' mouth open like he was going to let out a gasp or pant and his eyes now completely dilated, staring at him. "Get in here Sirius! Right now!"

Remus insulted him in three languages in addition to Shakespearean English, with varying degrees of personnel offense and biting sarcasm, though it came out in such a long and complex string he couldn't be sure what he was saying. A snarky grin grew broader on Sirius' face at every passing insult.

"Don't be so sensitive, get further in you wanker!" Sirius was bounding towards him again, the fire shinning off his damp chest and his hair flouncing almost unseen, because the color matched the dark night sky.

Despite his best efforts, Remus could not will his legs to move any deeper into the murky depths he knew only held more heart skittering cold. A body slammed into his back, tipping him off balance. Arms only caught him at the last second before he plunged face first into the shallow water. He was pressed close to Sirius, back against his chest, Sirius' arms wrapped around his torso, time suspended on a thin wire so he could feel every little detail.

The skin flush against his back was hot, not warm, hot and steamy and rubbing right up against his own. Remus tipped his head back so it rested on Sirius' shoulder, so his cheek was pressed in the crook of Sirius' neck, so Sirius looked down on him with the intensity of a fire and held him even closer, rubbing up and down his abdomen, those silky hands clenching his gut as they made slow work of his stomach. Remus shivered as the hands ran over his scars, as the body behind him shuttered too, so close he could feel every little jolt and tremble. Their skin touched so they were enveloped by one another, heat passing between the two, sweat from the other bare skin sticking to their own, back to chest, thigh against thigh, like they could have sex at any moment.

They were both hot now, like they were in the sun, and the friction being created between the rubbing of their smooth skin was sending sparks behind their eyes.

"It's cold," Remus whispered, watching as the white cloud of his breath wisped over Sirius' cheek and dissipated into the night air.

"Not really," Sirius whispered back. Remus tilted his head a little and pressed his lips to the skin of Sirius' neck, tasting the flesh and the sweat and the fruity shampoo. The gasp that wracked through Sirius' body Remus felt just as intensely. Each shutter went down Remus' spine too and the exhale of breath, like a gust of wind, was Remus' own breath.

"The bloody hell are you two doing! We are not risking life and limb for you two bents to have one off with each other!" James yelled, splashing over to them with the force of a tidal wave, his messy hair even messier, tangled from water and movement and wind.

Sirius, instead of letting go, gripped Remus tighter, less lovingly and more brotherly, and forcefully pulled him up, out of the water. Remus squealed, kicking and flailing with all his energy, with all his spindly bones and wry muscles.

"What are you doing?!" Remus yelped. He punctuated each wailed syllable with a kick.

Instead of answering, because of course he wouldn't answer, Sirius trumped farther into the lake, letting the freezing water pelt them like bullets with every splash. Remus let out an enraged breath that sounded more like a shriek.

"We're going to be four best friends naked in a lake!" Peter cheered, splashing the water in applause.

Remus struggled and squirmed, bare feet hitting their target only every so often as he tried in vain to avoid the steadily rising water. The lake was above Sirius' waist now and they were almost to Peter, with James trailing close behind.

"We're going to be four loons in a lake! Put me down Padfoot!"

Poor choice of words, Remus reflected as he felt the arms moving away from his body. Sirius dropped him in the water. After a moment that was not even long enough to process, a moment as rapid as a heart beat, though Remus' speeding heart fit two, he was submerged in the water, lungs not working, chills wracking him, cold like an electric shock, limbs not cooperating like they should, flailing madly but not helping him to reach air. Seconds of swirling water, too dark to see and lungs burning, panic rising like a tycoon. He broke the surface coughing, reaching out to the closet thing to him, which just so happened to be Sirius. Heaving in and out, water squirting from his lungs one cough at a time, he held tight to Sirius' body, rasping out breaths over his shoulder, with wet hair pressing against his forehead and teeth clattering together most unpleasantly.

"You absolute tosser!" Remus exclaimed, shoving Sirius away from him so the boy stumbled, the boy wearing an irritatingly proud smirk. Marching forward in an anticlimactic slowness, due to the water, he shoved again so Sirius fell backwards into the water too.

Peter and James, in their perceptive and 'don't leave me out of this' way, joined the tussle too.

*****

Remus gets back handed in the face, but Sirius doesn't seem to notice, or care.

Somehow, Sirius had begun a rant about his unpredictable nature, with wild hand gestures and whipping hair, without Remus' knowledge while he had been reflecting on the night.

"I am not only, as I've said moments ago, the King of unpredictable, but also the Pope. I have a royal title and disciples, for I am the grandest and highest unpredictable power. Even the most unpredictable look up to me. They offer me presents that they deem unpredictable, but I turn them all down. Why, oh great and wise Padfoot, King and Pope of unpredictability, you ask? Well it's the premise of it. I have to maintain my reputation!"

Remus decides now is the perfect time to prove his point. He leans over, barely missing an accidental slap again, and kisses Sirius right on the lips to shut him up. After a moment of attempted, and muffled, speech, it works. Remus cups Sirius' cheek with his hand, tasting chocolate, which makes him resentful, but not resentful enough to actually stop, and smoke. He feels the soft lips kissing right back against his own, before breaking away and leaning back against the window like it never happened.

"You're always unpredictable, which makes you very predictable. If you were to be predictable, which I know you could never manage, then that would ironically be more unpredictable. It's not that I knew you would suggest skinny dipping just that you having crazy ideas isn't out of the ordinary," Remus states with the wave of his hand, pressing his head back in the corner between the window and the wall, fingers longing for a cigarette to hang onto.

Sirius is silent, open mouthed and blinking slowly and the rapidly and then slowly again. He's on edge, sitting up (unlike Remus in his slouch) propped on one hand, oddly silent. "You kissed me."

"Predictably, you were not shutting up." Remus rolls his head on his shoulder and looks at him like he's missing something. Sirius thinks he rather is. The raindrops are cascading down the window much closer to the speed of a waterfall, though the pitter patter is still pleasant and soothing, like the type you'd find on a tape designed to help you sleep.

"Predictably..." Sirius mumbles, brushing his fingers over his lips in a daze. The fire has flared up, crackling happily as couples escape from the rain and join the sane people who had stayed inside. Perhaps, it was love that made them do stupid things, like get a cold just for the off chance of exchanging saliva with another person.

Remus has no more time to ponder this because, with an ever growing audience, there are lips on his and hands on his cheeks and a body pressing him into the corner. For a spare moment, Remus is concerned about decorum. He tries to pull Sirius away gently, without creating some sort of scene, but Sirius' lips are persistent in their intensity and fervor and his hands are wild, jumping all over his body and he is entirely uncooperative in Remus' efforts. Finally, he goes for a full force shove, hands flat against the chest, and pushes.

Sirius, regrettably, falls to the floor with a loud thump, which, also regrettably, gains the attention of everyone slowly trickling into the room. Things are able to ruminate longer in dreadful moments, because time has a wicked way with its speed when things seem bleakest.

Remus notices Sirius foremost, the shocked and almost hurt expression like he had just been betrayed, had his rightful property stolen, which, Remus thinks primly, he hasn't. Sirius is laying there on the ground propped up with his elbows, wide eyed and mouth agape, frozen in an expression Remus knows will be the climax of his nightmares for months, too akin to fear of him not to be.

Next he notices the room. There are only a few looking at them strangely, like they were two boys who had just been snogging moments ago in a window seat. Some analyze the two, look Remus up and down then Sirius, comparing them, trying to understand why those two. Maybe they think back to all their encounters to see if there are signs. Remus can see the scenes playing in their eyes.

Sirius trotting behind him, carrying his books with an encouraging smile. They saw it as friendly, perhaps overly friendly. Remus remembers differently. He remembers feeling leaded bones and sandpaper skin, feeling every move like he had arthritis, feeling every labored breath like he was trying to breath in carbon. He remembers slumped shoulders and corners of his mouth pointing down to his dragging feet. He remembers all his friends doing their best to cheer him up, Peter stuffing his cheeks with cheese for entertainment and James talking loudly and in long harangues so he didn't have to make any effort in conversation and Sirius prattling on, carrying his books, smiling with sad eyes at his hunched shoulders and inability to make his own arms work to carry the load or even force a grin at Sirius' raunchy humor. He remembers a long day and an even longer night, brazening his skin with new scars he would cringe away from in the mirror.

Maybe the people who had seen thought back to when they held hands the day after. When Remus had been late to wake up after his transformation, so Sirius had stayed with him for hours, resting next to his head as a dog, sunlight slowly dusting the cracks of the old house more and more until Remus finally cracked an eye open with a weary smile and a warm fur pillow tucked next to him.

"What time is it?" he had whispered, stroking the dogs fur on a delicate path. Padfoot whined and snuggled closer. A wet tongue licked Remus' face, well deserving of a push, something Remus didn't quite have the energy to pay up on at the moment. Ah, energy, it was gone from him now.

After it was clear Remus' fingers felt too much like they were working against stronger gravity to do anything but lay limply on his fur anymore, Padfoot turned into Sirius, Sirius wearing those grey eyes, soft like clay, and a molten pink smile like rose petals.

"It's late. You slept in," Sirius said in a crinkled voice. Laying sideways on the floor, they smiled lazily at each other for a moment before fatigue made everything too difficult for Remus. Birds from outside squawked. The house, in its ancient wisdom, remained silent for the two boys, though it was too bitter to allow them any warmth.

Remus closed his eyes and nodded, serenity passing over his face like a veil, "You're warm. Where's Pomfrey?"

Sirius shifted closer, skimming his fingers over Remus' skin, pausing briefly to jump over a new scar, then continuing. Remus barely felt it, though it was much appreciated. Instead all he could feel was nausea and pain and the taste of coppery blood lingering in his mouth. His eyes were closed so he couldn't see the way Sirius shifted closer, only hear it, or the detensing of muscles that went along with the little breaths of released anxiety that ghosted over his face, "I told her I got it. I think she thinks..."

Remus cracked an eye open. Laying on the hardwood floor was not comfortable, it was flat and lifeless and he was, unfortunately, not wearing anything, which harshly grated his skin and bones. Dust hung around him in swarms and clouds, outlining Sirius in a haze, with help from the sunlight filtering through the window.

"What does she think?" he asked in a croaky morning voice, like a crackling record.

Sirius smile widened almost imperceptibly, almost giddily. The light through the window didn't even come close to matching the light in his eyes. "She thinks we're dating."

A rumble of laughs escaped Remus before he coughed too much for anything else to happen beyond a strangled wheeze. A pool of blood dripped from his lips, onto the cracked floor below, dripping through the floorboards, eerily, to the floor below.

"Alright, love, take me to the hospital wing."

Sirius bit his tongue as his grin grew to painful levels, "Sure, pumpkin, let me get you some clothes first. We had a wild night last night." He winked one more time before leaving Remus' sideways world for one that was right side up and stepping away to search for something Remus' cloudy mind couldn't think of, the thought just out of reach.

Remus suddenly felt naked, naked in a different, being scrutinized sort of way. He curled in on himself, shivering with the pain and newfound cold the pain caused him, all the way done to the core of his bones. A blanket, scraggly from use and moths, was draped over his boney shoulders in a haphazard attempt at warmth before his clothes were found. That's what Sirius was doing. It provided a rough sort of warmth, like a German mother. He found himself comparing it to the soft fur or even the soft body that had lay there moments ago, much more soothing and pillow like.

Sirius, on any other occasion, would drop his clothes right on his stomach and watch with alight eyes as Remus changed and squirmed. That day, and any other day like it, though, he set the clothes down gently in from of Remus' head and went to stare out the window with an introspective face, like he was contemplating the meaning of life. Silently, Remus sat up, wincing in pain but continuing nonetheless, clutching the coarse blanket tighter so the chills may subside for a moment, so the cold that was just out of reach would go away if only for a few seconds. He stood with a gasp of pain, remaining hunched over as he let out his slow breath. Sirius was on him in an instant.

"Are you okay?" the boy fretted, ghosting his hands frantically over Remus in hopes of finding the problem area.

"Fine," Remus wheezed. He attempted to stand up fully, with help from Sirius' muscular arms. His bare, stickily legs jutted out of the hole-spotted blanket like he was some sort of awkward bird. His hair, ironically, was a nest fit for an eccentric bird. His eyes were pale, like there was some sort of milky gloss over them and under that were inky purple bags. Remus remembers, strangely, a certain fondness in Sirius' eyes despite this, a loving protector sort of look.

On shaky legs, using deadweight fingers and creaking bones, Remus was able to put clothes on, under the scrupulous, but caring, eye of Sirius. He moved with a necessary slowness, feeling the shack around him creek in sync with his joints and the splintered wood below his bare feet, digging into his heels. When his robes were tied, Sirius offered an arm and they left the shack, Remus relying on Sirius for support the whole way. They reached the school to find the nurse, Pomfrey, who had a worried nibble to her lip, walking in their direction. Without even discussing it, knowing silently the hell they would pay if they were out this late on a school day of all things, even with Remus' 'furry little problem' they moved their arms from each other's backs and held hands. Pomfrey slowed her vindictive march to a suspicious crawl, eyeing the boys with narrow keenness. Remus didn't need to pretend when he leaned on Sirius, snuggling his face in the other boys neck so his soft hair stroked Sirius' skin, causing, he knew, a warm smile to spread on the other's face. Pomfrey walked back in without a word, looking over her shoulder to make sure the boys were following at a reasonable distance.

Remus thinks, now, perhaps some misconceptions could be gleamed from their relationship. Of course all these thoughts had time to spin through his head in a moment. In the very next moment little had changed. He saw the confused faces of those who had not seen what had just occurred and Sirius still lay there, scooting maybe just a little farther back.

Remus recalls a moment like this, though he had, and still does, feign ignorance of it ever occurring. Sirius had been drunk over the summer. A lot, according to detailed and brutally scrawled letters from James, who was apparently equally as drunk the entire summer. It was a wonder his parents let him have any friends at all, given his sorry state.

He visited them, the two brothers, the two real best friends, a week between full moons. They spent late nights talking and drinking so they all woke up dry mouthed and nauseated, promises of never again wrapped up in the vomit in the toilet. During the day they swam, with their clothes on, thank you. They fought in a friendly way, though Remus was always inclined to say, "You can't fight in a friendly way. That's not how fighting works." He would promptly be tackled to the ground. They wore less clothes than they should and watched in horror as peels of skin came off each other's body's.

It was the last night Remus was going to be there and Sirius' breath was already stale with alcohol. It had rained all day, leaving an Earthy and wet smell for their muddled minds to figure out. Sirius (this is why they called him a dog, this is why he was a dog) leapt from his spot on the floor in the dead of night, nearly toppling over the half guzzled whisky bottle, and pounded out doors to run in the freshly dewed grass. Remus followed the others at a lackadaisical pace, skimming his fingers over walls and twirling in happy loops as he danced his way to the back door the others were tromping towards. A smile fixed itself on his face and the feeling of lightness, like he was constantly bouncing on a trampoline, overtook his core until he was giggling into his palm with oaky breath, uncontrollably. The smile did not fade as he watched Sirius roll in the wet grass, staining his jeans and t-shirt, though Remus doubted he cared, in fact he would wager Sirius liked the stains because they made him feel more adventurous, even though he only drank with his four best friends in his parents house; his new parents house. He plopped himself on the grass to watch the three, back against the porch railing, bare toes curling and uncurling in the grass below, feeling the wetness between his toes and the ticklish grass poking the bottoms of his feet.

The stars, heavenly beasts that they were, cast the whole scene in a ghostly glow, making Sirius a star in and of himself with that incandescent skin and perpetual sparkle to his eyes. The boys laughed louder than they should and more often than was normal, with less care to the outside world than was usual.

"Come join us Moony!" Peter called, rolling in the grass like he was dough that was being kneaded.

Sirius bounced up from where he was rolling, a dopey grin across his face, "No! He'll just ruin our fun!" He laughed, heartily flopping back down to the grass, his echoes reverberating through the field and forests.

Remus pretended not to feel am icy little stab to his chest, a tightening of his rib cage, a stone drop in the bottom of his gut. He pulled his knees inward, rubbing his finely hairy legs with the palms of his worn hands. The weightless feeling was crushed by the burden of reality. He felt heavy, like curling up in a little ball, like he had just eaten all the stored up junk food Peter had brought in one go, like James, Peter, and Sirius would turn around and laugh at him at any given second, he was just sitting on the precipice waiting for them to wake up and tell him to leave.

"No he wouldn't! We love you! Don't we love you Moony? Yes we love you!" James Potter was either eerily perceptive or strikingly oblivious.

"Nah," Sirius agreed, walking over to Remus now, legs all shiny, just like his hair, in that band t-shirt he swore up and down was vintage, which Remus had stolen one day over the summer, a day Sirius ran into things and fell a suspicious amount of times, "We like you. We wouldn't keep you around if we didn't." Sirius plopped down on his knees right in front of Remus' tightly knotted form. The grass, Remus imagined, was kind of itchy on his knees, maybe a little painful on the scrape he had gotten fighting in a 'friendly way' with James over who got to jump off the big rock first, or whatever.

"I think you like him in a different way!" James bellowed, laughing so much the words were hardly distinguishable. Peter tossed himself back to the ground and began rolling in the prickly grass with James.

Remus decided the best course of action was to feign ignorance, though his truly scarlet cheeks probably gave him away. He said nothing.

Sirius shifted closer, eyes gleaming like the moon, worrying his lips in a way Remus never thought he would see on someone as confident as Sirius, "He didn't mean anything by that. He's just, you know, James."

Remus laughed nervously, "Yeah, I know. I know you only keep me around for the chocolate." Relief washed over Sirius' face in the form of a bright grin. They could both feel the pleasant buzz of the alcohol whirl around in their brains, like the hum of electricity. It muddled all the senses, dulled the wet air and the cool wind and even the glare of the moon for Remus.

"That's the only reason and maybe you can sometimes make us laugh. Only sometimes though."

Remus rolled his eyes, hoping his white knuckles weren't visible in the moonlight from where they were gripping his legs, "Please, don't inflate my ego so." The wind whipped by them, giving them a strange look over its shoulder before passing.

"Well..."

Sirius swayed in his spot to a rhythm inside his own head. The stars, at least Remus imagines now, twinkled like lights in a club, tipping in zipping through the sky for Sirius. Sirius who reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke, which is such a steadfast and unflattering smell, but there was also the cool mint and cold night air and electricity, so Remus decided the drunkard could stay.

"Well?" Remus pressed, a twinkle like one of those stars in his eyes.

"Well." Sirius laughed a little, stifling it before it erupted, "Your lips are very kissable. It helps you're easy on the eyes, too."

"Oh am I now?" Remus laughed though a part of him felt the mockery grip his brain, "Again, you do wonders for my ego."

Sirius leaned over and slapped him on the arm, "I'm being serious!" Remus just barely resisted the pun. "You're good looking."

Remus tipped his head back so it rested on one of the porch beams and the hardwood lay flat against his skull. Sirius, who tried his very hardest to keep away from his namesake, was looking rather serious in this moment, as if he were intently analyzing the level of his attractiveness.

"No, I'm not attractive. Look at you compared to me. I've got no chance. Even to James. Hell, Peter's cute!"

"Yes you are!" Sirius defended. Fireflies flashed on and off around the field, buzzing like fairy lights, which Peter tried fruitlessly to catch. In the damp air, Peter jumped on his tip toes, always falling short, but none the less getting up and trying again, perhaps due to the alcohol shutting everything off in his mind. Sirius shuffled closer, "I have it on good authority Marlene fancied you a while back."

"Marlene's a lesbian. No good. Think about it, you can't think of one person who likes me and you make it your business to know all of that useless drama." Remus let the little cricket crawl along his arm, it's tiny feet barely there, staring Sirius directly in the eye as he did, hoping his blue tinted amber would tell Sirius to drop it so he didn't have to. The summer humidity, he decided, had muddled his brain these past few days, had not only stuck his clothes to his skin and plastered his hair to his forehead, but had also infected his brain like an airborne toxin.

"I can in fact." Sirius crawled closer so he was pinning either side of Remus with his hands. Their breath mixed together, their noses nearly brushed, their cheeks began to burn in a different way than the sunburns. The moon above suspended the moment in time, letting the two boys see and feel only each other and the grass under them. Remus could count every delicate eyelash of Sirius. Sirius' skin glowed in the moonlight, exactly like the surface of the moon. Remus licked his lips, hoping he did and didn't just see Sirius' eyes dart to the action and then the boy's cheeks immediately redden. Sirius was warm like the night air could never be, like a pillow he had been sleeping with, a warmth only another human body could produce. Remus clutched his knees closer to his tight chest, maybe as defense, maybe as invitation for Sirius to move closer.

"Who?" Remus finally breathed out. It was made difficult by that pesky little wind passage closing off so he was nearly suffocating.

"Me," Sirius responded like Remus had known he would and feared he would never.

"I don't believe you." Definitely the humidity clogging any neuron receivers in his brain. That had not been sanctioned to leave his mouth but there it was floating in the space between them, the ever shrinking space.

Sirius kissed him squarely on the lips, using his very practiced expertise to get Remus to tug him closer by his shirt and stick his own tongue in his mouth. Somehow the whisky tasted better from Sirius' warm and soft and wet mouth than it did from the bottle.

"Believe me now?" Sirius panted between kisses, peppering them all over Remus' face and lips.

The heat was unbearable, but yet wonderful, all encompassing, flowing and circulating between the two. Soft and wet lips sucked on Remus' skin as hands untangled his fingers from around his calves and brought them up to another neck. Gentle hairs brushed his cheek as Sirius leaned in closer, urging Remus to be more than a passive participant in this foray. Maybe it was stress, maybe it was alcohol, maybe it was the red flag waving around his head, whatever the cause Remus laughed.

Sirius backed up, maybe a little crestfallen, stroking his thumb over Remus' cheek, his round eyes almost swallowed by his eyelashes, "What?" he asked lightly, in a laughing, soft voice.

Remus giggled again, doubling over on his knees, ignoring the fingers running through his hair, "I'm very drunk," Remus mumbled.

The hand tapped its fingers on his scalp, buried within his torrential curls that he couldn't be bothered to brush regularly and that smelled perpetually like his mum's flower two in one shampoo and conditioner, "I guess I am too." Remus thinks, now, he heard Sirius' voice crack but a Black would never let his voice crack so he must have been mistaken.

"Why else would you kiss me?" Remus asked with a laugh, still nestling his head in his knees.

Sirius was being very gentle with his curls, like he may straighten and flatten them out if he wasn't too careful, "Because I like you?"

Remus laughed sardonically and looked up, "I heard once that you have to like yourself for anyone to like you so I guess that options out of the picture, huh?"

Remus let go of Sirius' neck. His hands had just been hanging there limply, feeling the tiny hairs back there, for an odd amount of time.

Sirius had those wide eyes he gets when he cares about someone and they're doing something he knows is bad for them, that he doesn't want them to do. He's seen them when Peter kept seeing that girl even after she cheated on him or when James played Quidditch with a broken ankle. Sirius cupped his skull and blinked slowly and he clearly wanted to say something or maybe kiss him again, but he didn't, not yet.

A loud thud came from Peter slamming into the ground very hard.

"Peter?!" a concerned James called.

The hand in his hair moved away. Remus felt dizzy even though he was sitting still, felt his vision swirl even those his eyes were closed.

"Padfoot! Moony! Help me with Peter! I think he's passed out!"

Sirius disappeared before his eyes like an aberration, slipping away through his world like he had never been there in the first place. Remus licked his lips so much he had to bite his tongue to stop it. The not cricket, but mosquito, bit his arm and flew away haughtily, probably sticking it's tongue out at him as it went. The annoying little spot grew red and itchy in an instant, but Remus resisted. Remus resisted because that's what he always did, he resisted, even when his hands twitched to scratch and his lips longed to kiss.

The next morning he left with hardly a good bye to Sirius, merely a small smile and wave like nothing happened. The house he returned to was as eerily quiet as ever, only the occasional turn of a page to fill the devoid silence. He dropped his stuff in his room, using just the a little too much force, and looked out the window, which was mocking him in its quaint brightness and unmoving rolling hills outside. The rest of his room was much more comforting in its dark and grey way. He stood in the center of it all for a moment, happy that books were scattered around him in disarray and knick knacks teetered off his shelves all lopsided.

"How was the trip dear?" his mother asked from the doorway. He didn't need to turn to see the worn little smile across her equally worn face, that had premature wrinkles tucked around her eyes and the corners of her lips. She was so beautiful, he realized when he turned to her, with her lovely brown hair, so much deeper a chestnut color than his, and her green eyes he only wished he had inherited, only he wished he could have kept. She was also haggard, which made him sick to his stomach. It made him want to vomit and run and release her from the strain he had caused that made her this tired.

She was always tired, the way she drifted through the house with slender and hunched shoulders, the way she kissed with chapped lips only for the briefest of seconds, the way she could never smile with her teeth even though the pictures on the mantle and fuzzy childhood scrapbooks told him she used to, often. He remembered, many years ago, over ten now, she used to read to him fairy tales, Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast. She stopped reading those two on purpose, bad messages for her little monster, he did not fail to notice. He did not fail to notice the dust gathering on their cracked spines. He did not fail to notice the dust gathering on her beloved gardening supplies.

He remembered the beautiful arrays of poinsettias and lilies that used to flourish in their back garden and the dirt smudges she used to wear like a badge of honor on her knees and elbows. She had dedicated hours to her flowers, weeding, digging, watering, pampering; they had made her smile. She would come in and rub his head in such a gentle way, digging her fingers in his curls and looking down in his once blue eyes with a youthful smile, shrouded in rays of sunlight. She loved, loves, gardening, and now no longer does she have the time or the happiness or the energy.

He talked to her about this only once, asked when he was young and naive why she didn't go outside any more. By then she was already fading to grey, losing her color. She bent down to his level, smiling with rain clouds behind her head, and cupping her cheek with a wrinkled and soft hand.

"I just want to look after you better, my love," she had said and now Remus knew like he knew then. He knew why he felt out of place in his own home, like every second he spent there was a second closer to his departure. Those words thick with love held shame and also, subtly, disdain, like a daring spice, you only need to add a little to taste it, and did Remus taste it. He tasted it for the rest of his years, a bitter, sour, self loathing taste that infected his every action.

He looked to his mother then, standing in the doorway, waiting for his response. In that moment he could envision a life without him, full of vivacious colors and flowering gardens and smiles full of brilliantly white and slightly crooked teeth. He imagined the dust on the fairy tales gone and sunshine filtering through his window in a happy, not eerily happy, way. He imagined friends who were real people, not animals, animals for him. He longed for that world just as much, if not more as they did, he was sure. The longing sent a pain to his heart and a prickle to his eye. He felt hollow.

"It was fun," he replied with the same kind of small smile. In that moment he knew she could see that world too.

Sirius flooed over the same day, pacing frantically in his kitchen as Remus feebly offered him cups of tea and biscuits. Black hair whipped back and forth as heavy combat boots filled their desolate home with loud, clambering noise. Finally, when it seemed words would never end up out of Sirius' mouth, which was just flopping around uselessly on his face, Remus stopped him in his path with hands on his shoulders.

"Sirius," Remus said. That was all he said, because Sirius was kissing him hard on the lips, defiantly, confirming. Remus, with his open eyes, saw his mother disappear into the shadows of the living room. He didn't even get to enjoy their last hooray, so to speak, before Sirius wrenched his face away with some strange mixture of triumph and trepidation.

"Remus," he began, out of breath, saying the name like it was a holy word, "I've wanted to do that. But then you got all shifty and I thought it was because of the other night so I came here to clear the air but here you are all unassuming and blind siding so um, yeah."

Remus had foggy memories of the other night. He thought of his mother's unused gardening tools. "What? What are you talking about? Why did you just...?" Remus cocked his head to the side with his mouth a little open, licking his dry lips. Lies, like curses, fell from his lips with a natural ease he had cultivated through years of necessity and self preservation. "Are you okay? Are you on drugs?" He maintained a look of concern as he put a very brotherly hand on Sirius' shoulder and tried his hardest to looks as friendly and unappealing, in a romantic way, as possible.

"What?" Sirius was frantic but he slowly calmed, because lies were his second language too. "I may be a little high."

Remus shoved him with his hand, "You're high!" he yelled in a whisper, "My mum's in the other room! What the bloody hell are you doing here?" The tap leaked a single drop of water and the lightbulb above flickered like a wink.

Sirius laughed on edge, scratching the back of his neck mock sheepishly, "I don't know. So you... We're okay?" Perhaps the lies are not as brick solid as he had thought, but lies don't have to be believed to work.

"We're fine as long as you get you inebriated ass out of my home before my mum never lets me go back to James' house again."

Sirius chuckled then, covering a nervous little squeak. Remus herded him to the floo and got him off with a stern look. His mother looked to him with wonder but he shook his head with yet another weary smile as if to say, 'no I won't burden you even more.' His mother, fading beauty that she is, smiled in thanks. He told her Sirius was just joking, another lie. They come so naturally to him, even now.

*****

The common room is slowly coming to life again. Remus is not ready to let the fleeting moment go, but he has no choice because it is gone. In the next moment Sirius is off the floor and time has returned, again, to its normal pace.

Sirius flails his arms, because he has always been better with actions than with words, "What was that for?! You kissed me first!"

Now everyone was looking at them with that same look in their eyes, probably thinking, 'they held hands! I knew it!' even though they knew nothing.

They couldn't know Sirius had his hand on Remus' thigh, squeezing to relieve some of the tightness in his chest, when the defense teacher talked about how despicable werewolves were in class. They couldn't know how they always sat next to each other when the group did Friday night dares on the off chance two were dared to kiss, which hasn't happened yet so they sit closer still, thighs pressing, chugging bottles of emotion-stifling amber the other's lips had just touched. They couldn't know they curled together on the floor of an abandoned shack once a month for warmth and comfort and a love maybe deeper than friendship. They couldn't know how Remus had pried Sirius' fists apart to burn the letter with the horrid family crest on the seal within them, only to give a gentle, hardly there kiss to the corner of his mouth. They couldn't know the tears Sirius had silently shed in his arms or the nightmares they had both worked off within the warmth of the other. They couldn't know and they didn't.

"Sirius please, not now," Remus begs. The gazes are increasing like reproducing flies and the noise is ringing in his ears, or the lack thereof, maybe. Either way his ear are ringing like there are deafening sirens blocking everything else out in the room except for Sirius' words.

"What the fuck do you mean not now! We've had plenty of time and you haven't done anything! I know you remember that night but you avoid it!" Sirius is screaming in the way Remus thought only reserved for his most dreadful of cousins. The words sting like a slap, loud and echoing.

"Maybe it's because I don't want to talk about it. We don't ever need to talk about it." Especially not in front of other, judgmental, people, he adds silently. Sirius has his fists clutched to his side, shaking. His face is turning a dangerous red like a stop sign. Remus can imagine his black hairs standing on end and smoke pouring from his ears.

"Great! The Remus Lupin guide to avoiding your problems! Why don't we all just sit around passive aggressively reading books and 'accidentally' scraping our knees or stubbing out cigarettes on our hands or getting paper cuts all over our fingers! Don't think I don't notice you do that on purpose!"

Remus buries his cut-up hands in his robes. The little scrapes heal when he falls, the little burns crust over and peal, the scars never fade. His mother's weary lines will never uncrinkle and his father's hair will never un-grey.

"Are you just offended someone doesn't want to kiss you? Are you that self centered a world when even your best friend doesn't turn gay for your beauty is just too unfathomable?"

Remus counts down the seconds on a timer he knows all too well. The clock for an explosion. Sirius has his mouth in a snarl and he looks about ready to burst if he doesn't scream.

"You're not my best friend! You're fucking boring and drab and you're always bringing us down! You ruin our fun because you can't imagine any fun yourself! Do you know what your problem is?"

Remus raises an eyebrow, interjecting in a sarcastic voice, "No, tell me."

Sirius flails with his mouth for a bit, thrown off by the snark, before he finally can continue his little tirade against Remus. Everyone is gaping, "You're bitter because you're so fucking unhappy! You feel left out every time you see someone else actually enjoying themselves! Guess what, Remus? The only person keeping you from being happy is yourself! But you don't want to have fun, you just want to wallow in self pity and have everyone feel bad for you! And then when someone DOES try and be there for you, you act like nothing's the matter and you close yourself off! You're so self centered you push everyone away because you feel bad for yourself! Not only that, but us, your friends, you're right shit to! We'd be better off without you!"

Remus has not cried since he was six and told he had to be brave and brave people don't cry. Remus has not gotten angry sine he was eight and told that he was already getting more than he deserved, anger was not something he could afford any more. Remus has not thought of himself first since he was nine and heard a whispered conversation in the dim of the living room.

"Hope," his father had said, voice thick with wine and regret, "I don't know how much longer I can do this."

His mother had stayed silent for a time. They had talked about him. They had said how tired they were taking care of him. They said they loved him. They never said they liked him.

He would not break now.

James had appeared in the masses of love lorn couples. Remus, and probably Sirius, had not noticed. He was charging over to them now, dark eyes round and worried.

Remus smiled pleasantly, "I'm not forcing you to be my friend. Stop if you like."

A penny drops in the silence. Maybe it's not a silence because James is yelling, but it's all very far away. Sirius is trembling with rage and he's bringing his fist back like he's been taught to do in any argument. Remus flinches, eyes closed, bracing for an impact that never comes. He cracks one eye open, then the other. Sirius is there, simmering, holding his fist mid swing, James behind him, ready to intervene if needed.

"You think you deserve this? Guess what, you don't," Sirius spits. Remus wills him to snap, to hit him, to do something.

"Didn't you just say I was shit? Don't you want to hit me? I won't stop you. I'm awful. You should hit me."

He wants to say this, but he doesn't. He pinches his face into a stony expression of silent daring. Sirius drops the fist.

"I love you."

Remus scoffs, ignoring the murmurs in the crowd and the pelt of the rain and the droplets of blood coming from the cuts on his palms made by his fingernails, "You sure have a funny way of showing it." He can't help but cross his arms. He can't help but feel his knees buckle. He can't help but feel his heart descend into his gut at a slow, drawn out pace. He can't help but gulp.

"Im being serious," Sirius grits out between canine teeth, too straight and too white.

"I know you're Sirius." The whole room is being shooed out by Peter. He's shoving some or whispering to others, whatever it takes. The silence is still deafening. The students are looking regretfully over their shoulders at the scene, like its some sort of joke, a play, an act.

"Why won't you listen to me?" Sirius growls. Remus thinks he's more like a dog now than a human. Remus wonders if he feels the same pull of his animal form. Remus wonders if it's only him.

"I'm listening to you. You've said you'd be better off without me. You've said I'm not your friend. You've said I'm shit. It's fine."

I love you, he had said as well, Remus' mind so helpfully reminds him.

Remus wants for those three words to leave the room. He wants for them to leave the little cove of his bed curtains, for them not to be branded on his temple like the goodnight kiss that inevitably follows, when Sirius thinks he's asleep. He wants for fall not to be the season of love because he's sick of it polluting everything he looks at, even his friends. He wants all of this so badly he feels a pull in his chest. He wants for there to be no more kisses just as he wants there to be thousands.

"No, it's not fine! You can't just push people away and expect them to be okay with that! I love you and you can't change that and you can't just ignore it!"

Sirius is, and will always be, passionate. Whether it be about his acoustic guitar he picked up from a vintage muggle store with all the punk stickers still fraying on its front or the leather jacket he painstakingly roughed up for the patented worn and rugged look. Sirius has passion in words, sure, but more so in actions, in the way he paces with wild hands and loud boots, in the way he articulates each word in an elegant, on the cusp, speech with an equally elegant hand gesture, in the way he twitches just slightly under pressure and bounces, excited, when he's particularly happy.

"You can say three words but that doesn't give them meaning." Sirius is about to butt in, but Remus holds a hand up, silencing him, "Do you really love me? Do you really want me? Will we ever be happy together? Did you even think this through?"

Sirius is shedding angry tears, which Remus has to use all his will power not to wipe from his pink cheeks, "I have thought about this! If I haven't I would have just snogged you in fourth year when I first realized I wanted to! Remus don't tell me you don't feel it to!"

Remus wants to thank time for all the wonders it can create. He is able to recall in excruciating detail Valentine's Day, fourth year, in a span of mere seconds and he thinks time helps him very much in that.

They were at the breakfast table, the three, in the midst of blinding pinks and anatomically incorrect hearts, recounting their Valentine's rewards in loud, boisterous voices that carried a lot farther than a fourteen cum fifteen year old usually could manage. Remus was still pretty small then, not as tall as he is now and somehow even scrawnier. His shaggy, tawny hair flopped in his face like he was a dog and occasionally, when he wasn't guarding it, he would stutter.

"What about you Remus?" they inevitably asked. It was Peter, so kind, always trying to keep him part of the group.

It was a right of passage for them. Sirius got fifteen cards, which he said was just a warm up for the years to come. He basked in the attention, he wanted it so badly. Remus deep down knew, still knows, it's because of the neglect of his real family. He doesn't hold it against him. Sirius Black will never be tied down by silly customs and romantic walks on a beach. He will forever be lead of the chase without even knowing he's in a race. He loves the attention, but he will never know when the attention is on him, when the girls are flirting very seriously or when they're making eyes at him.

"None for me," he muttered in a way he hoped was care free enough to sound like it was only the loss of the girls that made him sad.

The other three laughed at him with such triumphant glee in their adolescent faces he knew the lie had worked. He took it with a straight face. He helped Peter with his Defense homework and he tended to James' wounds after his attempt to get Lily's attention failed. He consoled the poor besotted boy by telling him if she was really the love of his life she would see that someday. And the lies kept coming.

Sirius looked at him from across the table very intensely, like they were playing a chess game without any pieces. Remus looked back mildly, buttering a piece of toast absently as he waited for Sirius to, as he always did (does), say what's on his mind.

"I just don't get why you didn't get anything!" Sirius finally huffed, looking to his pile of cards like it had personally offended him, then back up to Remus with childlike curiosity.

"Maybe because nobody likes me?" Remus suggested. He didn't like that weird feeling he was getting in his belly, like the food he had just eaten was coming to life and dancing around in his tummy. Sirius' gaze, though fraught with naivety, was very focused and fine tuned on him.

"I know that, I mean, why does no one like you?"

Remus knew very well this was supposed to be a joke about how ugly he was or how unlikable, or how he was scrawny and gangly and short and misshapen. He barely refrained from staring slack jawed in offense, from setting his knife down calmly and glaring, from spitting an insult.

"You know I think it's probably because I only have four friends, no other social life, and a predisposition to books. Why do you care? What do you want?"

Sirius, never one to let his emotion simmer, scoffed, offended, "I just don't think it's right for you to be all lonely and for... Just for no one to like you seems odd. I mean sure you're with us but we're almost always the center of attention. Surely some stodgy Ravenclaw perfect would like your mild mannered intelligence."

Remus laughed, coughing up a bite of toast on to his plate with a choking sort of noise, "You and James are always the center of attention, no one notices me. Besides, it's not like there's much to notice. Think about it. Even your stodgy Ravenclaw perfects probably want someone decent looking. Who knows, they may even want a bad boy, like you, to counter act their stodginess."

Sirius shook his head quickly, flinging some jam off his toast in the process, "But they HAVE to notice you're good looking. I mean it just doesn't make any sense."

The clatter of the Great Hall became unsettling close but also very far away, like a boat rocking in a tide, swaying back and forth. The silly pink festive Valentine's Day hearts all four of them had charmed to serenade people at random intervals hanging from the ceiling became daunting, mocking him, like hanging heads from the mafia or something.

"I'm not attractive and even if I were they wouldn't notice because, like I said, you and James are always the center of attention and much more attractive."

"Yes you are!" There was something about Sirius' persistence that made his cheeks flush and insides squirm.

"Why does this bother you so much? I'm not offended. It's not like I make an effort."

Sirius hadn't spoken to him for the rest of the day, to righteously offended on behalf of his own disbelief in his good looks. Remus thinks, now, it was a rather odd thing to get so upset about. He thinks now perhaps it makes a little sense, like the time Sirius yelled at the poor girl for snorting, when Sirius had called him pretty.

*****

Remus stabilizes himself on the ledge of the window, cold and bristling beneath his touch, sending sparks of pain up through his little crescent shaped cuts, "Sirius, I don't know what you're playing at, but you can stop. What do you want?"

Remus inhales so his chest expands and all the rest of the air in the room is sucked in too. Sirius is frantically searching for words, because, obviously, his actions aren't working.

"I want you!"

Silence. The fire crackles.

"Why?" Remus asks in an almost broken voice. It mirrors the rumble of the thunder outside and the crack of lightning that follows, like a mocking slow clap.

Sirius steps closer then, all the anger dissipating from his face in a second, simply falling off as he makes a failed gesture to cup Remus' cheek. He can hear the true bewilderment in Remus' question, he can remember the night Remus had not so jokingly said no one could like him because he didn't like himself.

"Because... You're Moony. You really can't see, can you?"

Peter and James exchange a look and back up, exiting with small little smiles, full of hope. The fall rain has begun to really come down some time when neither of them were paying attention. It dims the light in the room and patters on the window incessantly, harshly. The grey outside is dark and brooding and maybe just a little foreboding. They are too caught up in the moment to notice the eyes peaking out behind corners and couches. They are enveloped in each other's gaze too much to notice any of it, the orange lighting or the thrumming rain or the beady eyes watching.

Remus shakes his head.

"You're beautiful, Remus," Sirius, who is waiting seemingly for this to click in Remus' head, looks so distraught that Remus can't see this, just like on Valentine's Day, "And... shit how can't you see this. You're so..." Sirius tries to grab the right word out of the air, but this time, of all the times when he's had an excess of perfect words, he can't. Remus feels out of place in the middle of the room and in his frantic search for a distraction he catches those sharp eyes watching them with shrewd attention.

"Hey, Sirius," Remus inclines his head towards the spot, using a soft voice like the fading hues of the room around them. The usually scraggly, threadbare robes feels oddly soft in the heat pulsing from the fire. He still feels like a spectacle. Thunder rumbles off in the distance, interrupting the beat of the rain only for a moment.

"Right. Do you want to...?" Sirius fidgets, that's new. His eyes reflect the fire. The grey provides a perfect mirror for it. His hair seems extra solemn, extra bleak, extra straight, framing his pale and perfectly statuesque face.

"Dorms?" Remus asks because that deadly, dour expression doesn't belong on Sirius Black, the almost grown up child, especially if it's illuminated by such an eerie firelight.

In a terse silence they climb the stairs, stepping over James and Peter who had clearly been sitting there listening, despite their best efforts to hide it.

Remus, in this inopportune moments of inopportune moments, remembers the feel of those soft lips against his and the gentle hands cupping, caressing, cajoling him. When Sirius turns back around he sees Remus touching his lips, eyes glazed over in a past memory. Remus reddens because it is painfully clear what he's thinking of, whether the specific memory is uncertain.

Fall has sprung again, so sneaky because no one expects such a drab season to hold such dazzling colors and passionate emotions. Even the stoned walls can't hide the noise of the rain now, beating down on the castle for entrance in never ending waves, precise in their every formation.

Not two days ago they had sat saturated under a dripping tree amongst the other crazy couples, waiting out the rain in the mud. It came down in white sheaths around them, slice upon slice of pelting rain. The mud, squishy below their trousers, coated their hands and their legs and their feet in a thick sludge. The mossy trunk of the tree they were leaning on was doing no better for the cleanliness of their clothes or hair, only a nuisance to Sirius, who adored his perfect hair. The only thing keeping them safe was a hastily cast (though not hastily enough, as Remus had droplets of water undulating from the tips of his hair, which was plastered to his forehead) water repellent spell. Sirius, of course, looked like he belonged in the rain, like he was some rain God who just naturally had a sheen of rain on his chest. Remus preferred not to look at him.

Instead, he plucked at the hem of his slightly soggy jumper and eyed the cuts on his fingers, while Sirius turned leafs into burnt piles of ash with his finger. The rain kept coming. Their thighs brushed together. All the couples seemed to have found a way to occupy the time under their own little trees, whether it be talking while looking dreamily into each other's eyes or holding hands with shy blushes.

"Bet you wish you were under one of those tress, huh?" Remus asked, pointing to a particularly handsy couple biding their time with wet lips and slobbery tongues.

"Don't see why we couldn't be."

Zap. Another brown leaf fell on their legs in a pile of ash. Remus turned to Sirius and Sirius turned to Remus, only using their heads. The decision was less conscious as it was natural. Sirius cupped Remus' cheek and pressed their lips together, not a foreign experience, which it really should have been. They moved their lips but not their hands because that would require some level of seriousness in this little exercise of boredom, that's all this was, after all. Slowly, stiller than the rain or the trembling tree around them, they kissed, moving lips in time with each other, opening mouths to soft and wet tongues. Sirius stroked Remus' cheek with his palm, initiating more between their languid mouths and bodies.

They separated, only for a moment, breathing in shallow breaths and just staring at each other, grey looking into amber, as if asking for consent, for confirmation that this wasn't just another elaborate daydream. They both leaned in again and continued their dance as if the music had never stopped.

After the initial exhilaration waned, their heart rates slowed to a steady pace, so much more consistent that the pillaging droplets, like bombshells, beating down around them. They kissed and Sirius tasted like peppermint, which was basically tasting like cold, which just baffled Remus to no end, how could a flavor taste like cold? Methanol apparently. Yep, he was definitely delirious in euphoria. Sirius was pressing his face into Remus' using the extra force of his hand on Remus' cheek for support and they brushed their lips together and Remus felt the happy buzz of his mind like when he got drunk, except somehow he was even more confused.

Remus happily tugged the other boy closer, tangling his fingers around his neck and pushing him farther against him. Their tongues stroked each other. Their velvety lips locked and pressed and, in an act of out of character rashness, Remus brought a leg over Sirius' legs, straddling him so he was perched atop his thighs. Their warm bodies moved and flowed together, just like their lips, creating a gentle rhythm like a song on an acoustic guitar. Hands wandered over clothes, down chests and over hips, feeling damp cloth and hard muscle beneath their palms. Lips stayed steadfastly to lips in an odd cacophony of heat and electricity.

The rain did not let up for hours. The white sheets protected them from prying eyes.

They left like nothing happened. Because nothing did. They were just passing the time. Fall had infected their brains. That's all.

*****

They are up in their room, with the door closed and locked and sound proofed and anything else they could think of. Now if only they could think of words.

They both try to start a sentence at the same time.

Remus leans on the door and Sirius paces between the beds.

"Remus, are we a couple?" Sirius finally blurts. It seems an appropriate question as any.

Remus thinks now would be the time to say something, vaguely aware that his mouth is indeed moving, but no words are coming out. Drat.

The words do finally come out, only a little strangled, "I think maybe yes, but..."

Sirius has stopped his pacing, which is bad, because that means he has nowhere else to focus his nervous energy, but on Remus.

"You don't want to be? Because you don't like me? Because you're scared of commitment?" Remus is blank. Sirius rushes over to him like an eager to please puppy, "We don't have to be serious if you don't want to! We can just snog and stuff and see other people!"

Remus shakes his head, feeling his tipsy little world slant on its axis, "I... you're great and I don't want to be casual..."

Words are definitely required to communicate in this situation. They are all bundling so marvelously in his throat and the look of worry on Sirius' face might just make the dam crack.

"Then...?" Sirius is looming so close with his big eyes and silky hair. In the silent dorm room Remus suddenly feels a lot like how Sirius must feel on a daily basis, impatient and twitchy in the absolute silence.

"My parents don't like me!"

Of all the things to blurt he choose the most nonsensical. He sighs and puts his face in his hands, shaking his head with such great disappointment in himself.

"Okay," he lifts his head up to see Sirius looking at him strangely, as if deciphering the hidden message in the very plain words, "Right. Preface. I'm a burden to my parents, right? They're always tired and they don't smile any more. So if my parents can't like me then how could you once you have to put up with all of this." Remus is using a level voice and dead straight eye contact like he is talking to a child, "I'm doing you a favor, alright? I can't imagine why you like me but I know you won't after a while so I'm saving us both the trouble."

Sirius is shaking his head almost maniacally. The room around them seems to be receding or maybe Sirius is moving closer. And then. Lips are on his, lips he pulls closer so they mesh and slide and touch and feel, sharing heat, wonderful wonderful heat for many frantic seconds.

Sirius breaks away, cornering him, close enough to press Remus' back against the door, "If you don't want to be with me then stop doing that." Sirius' voice is a whisper, a plea. His eyes are wide and his hair is wild and his eyeliner has smeared and he still looks gorgeous to Remus, like he always does. Like when he wakes up and he blinks slowly and stretches in the orange light from the window or when he's cocky, strutting around in the hallways for superficial attention or when he winks at Remus when their faces are conspiratorially close, while planning a prank.

Remus gulps for air, round eye just as pleading, "I will. I will once you stop doing that." Breath, though usually something one doesn't think about, is foremost on Remus' mind, specifically why he isn't breathing and why Sirius' breath is right over his lips, ghosting over the flesh so his skin crawls and prickles like tiny little ants are carrying crumbs all over it.

"I don't want to. I don't want to." Sirius has Remus' cheeks cupped in his hands, stroking the rigid scars with his thumbs, always soft from expensive hand lotion, those moon eyes hoping for an answer Remus could never give, thinks he could never give.

"I just don't get it. I just... Why?" Remus inhales, putting his hands over Sirius' to still the now almost frantically stroking thumbs, "You're so beautiful and smart and brilliant and full of life you could have anybody. Why me? I'm bland and boring and I read too much and I don't like to go skinny dipping or go partying. I'm nothing special, like you are. I don't understand and I think you'll get tired of me or start to realize that I'm drab and bland and boring, too."

Sirius tugs him into a rough hug, murmuring rejections over and over into Remus' hair. He lets the strong arms hold him, lets the face bury itself into his neck, lets Sirius inhale his vague lavender soap smell because maybe Sirius likes it, maybe Sirius loves it.

In the muffled waves of his hair, Sirius shakes his head and begins to speak, "You're very beautiful, whether or not anyone else can see it. And I'm not just saying that because I'm... I'm in love with you, objectively you're very handsome. And you're sharp, you're not afraid to put me in my place with your snark." There's a pause and a wet laugh. The hands run over the bumps in his spine, "You work so hard, in school, on all your essays on being friendly with everyone, even the people who are rude to you, even to me when I insult you on accident. Like in first year when I called you..." Remus can almost feel the burn of the blush on his own skin. "Because you were a half blood, you were so understanding. You were the first person not to yell at me when I messed up." The arms squeeze tighter around his body. Breaths are heaving from Sirius' lungs, wracking Remus' body with their strength.

"You aren't boring, I promise. You help us with pranks and get us out of detention, which we never thank you enough for." Sirius lets out a little laugh. Remus tugs him closer, pressing their bodies against each other. "I think you might be out of my league."

"No," Remus says, blurred in the head from the almost tangible smell of Sirius, leather, motor oil, lightning, polluting his lungs, "I don't think so."

The room is dead silent like a crypt, waiting for them to do something aside from hug and gush like watery kids. They let go of each other, remaining a breath away even then, fearing they may drift apart if they separate any more.

"I don't... I won't leave you. I can't because I'm... I love you and there's nothing you can do to change that, okay? You deserve someone in your life to tell you you're beautiful and give you plasters when you cut yourself and tell you you don't have to or shouldn't and I think that could be me. I know it's fucking corny and ridiculous and I'm rash and young and whatever other complaints you have, but I just think we could be happy. Us. Together." Sirius says it like a question. He's got his hands twitching in his pockets, then he's got them moving about to find a new place to twitch until Remus catches them with his own. His hands are rough against Sirius' smooth ones, which smell, today, like rosemary and mint, most likely from some hand lotion.

"Yeah."

Silence. Sirius has a grin cracking over his face like an egg, "Remus Lupin, will you be my boyfriend?"

Remus sways in his spot, pretending to weigh his options. He pecks Sirius on the lips with a grin and a twinkle to his eye, "Nah. Don't really feel like it." There is a full fledged smirk playing at his lips. His caramel hair is partially in his eyes but he can't be bothered to move it out of the way. Vaguely, he's aware he needs a haircut.

Or not, because Sirius is stroking the hair out of his eyes with a gentle touch, "You don't? That's a shame. I guess I'll have to go snog James then."

Remus sticks his tongue out, "Ew, James, anyone but him. What about Peter? His face is round and kissable." The door is firmly against Remus' back and probably the only thing keeping him from falling to the ground from the jittery excitement numbing all his bones so they're noodley.

"You'd rather me kiss Peter than James?" Sirius licks his lips, pink tinged cheeks blossoming like a flower. Remus leans over and nuzzles his neck, brushing his chapped lips over the skin, spending extra time with his tongue over the quickly thumping pulse point.

"Oh yeah. Though I think I would rather you kiss me." His words get swallowed by the neck under his mouth. He can feel the vibrations on the skin below his lips, can feel Sirius jolt with the current.

"Thought you didn't want to be my boyfriend," Sirius all but gasps, his head flung back in appreciation of Remus' lithe mouth work.

Remus licks the neck proudly, "I'm fickle that way."

"So..." Remus nips at the skin in experimentation. Sirius is unable to finish his sentence. Trial one success. Sirius tugs at his head, not as a stop but as a go, digging his fingers in his hair, "So, we're official then?" Sirius wheezes like his voice is under strain. Remus likes to think it is. Because of him.

"Okay." Remus lifts his head from the neck to look right into Sirius' eyes, watching the black pupils dilate and round out at the sight of his messy hair, tangled a little from Sirius' fingers and lips that were already getting a little swollen. "Yeah, okay. Just promise me..." Remus sucks his lips in to think. Sirius seems rather disappointed by this, but when Remus starts biting them he looks very much appeased, "If we break up, we can still be friends, all four of us, yeah?"

Sirius nods with a bright grin, which, for Remus, is such a relief to see, especially because he knows it's on his behalf, "Of course. Yes of course."

Remus decides now is not the time to work out his feelings towards Sirius, whether it's love already or slowly tumbling down that route. He kisses Sirius, again, instead.

Fall, yes underrated because no one notices the weather is so wonderfully crisp and the trees are so wonderfully bright and colorful and the blue sky is always so lovely and clear, is the season not of death, like some say, but of the start of new beginnings. When it rains it pours though, and people tend to only dwell on that piece of information. But fall, in its unyielding forgivingness, is fine with the bad reputation. It will live, giving young couples a first light and old couples a new one.

Sirius and Remus kiss for minutes as the rain subsides and peters off and James and Peter creep up to the silent room to check on them. The two boys knock on the door with trepidation, but they do get let in by to two messy haired, softly smiling puppies. James pats Sirius on the back like a proud older brother and Peter squeezes both their shoulders with warmth.

Fall smiles down on all of them, taking back the rain to its clouds and leaving the four boys who definitely love each other to bask in it all. Now they are together, two of them holding hands not so secretly under the table, two of them sharing warmth in bed, two of them whispering in the dead of night, two of them in love, but all of them loving.

The End


End file.
